Each and every one of them represents a different chapter in the Second Chance success story, which has now spanned three decades.

Jacquie, from Dingle, who now runs Liverpool-based addiction therapy centre SHARP, says she would not be where she is today if it wasn't for Second Chance.

She says: "I came upon Second Chance 20 years ago. At the time I was a mum of two and I'd left school at 13 through truancy.

"I had this overwhelming sense of desperation to know where I fitted in in the world but I didn't know what to do about it.

"Then I saw a leaflet in the library for Second Chance and I decided to give it a try and I haven't looked back since.

"It made me the person I am today."

Mike, from Garston, tells a similar story: "I'd worked since leaving school but then I was made redundant and there weren't many jobs about.

"I had a desire to learn and I started on Second Chance but I couldn't complete the course for financial reasons - I had a wife and two kids and a job came up on the Garden Festival and I had to take it.

"But I always vowed to go back and complete the course. I had to give up work in 2002 because I was diagnosed with cancer and, even though I was facing a life or death situation, I knew having to give up work gave me the opportunity to go back.

"It was fantastic and I developed skills which I'm now putting to good use in the community."

Mike is symbolic of what course tutor Eileen Kelly says Second Chance is all about. When he started on the course he lacked confidence and self-esteem but it enabled him to recognise his own talents and Mike is now chair of the South Liverpool health forum, a published historian and a lyricist who teaches anti-bullying songs to children in the city's schools.

Eileen adds: "This is exactly what Second Chance is all about - showing students that they have so much to offer.

"We draw students from across the city and the course remains as relevant today as it did back in 1976.

"People come in thinking they are thick but these people have so much knowledge and experience, all they need is encouragement.

"The government is saying that education has to be linked to what employers need and the focus is on 18 and 19-year-olds and people with certain skills.

"Education in this country has always done that, and it needs to continue, but it doesn't have to do that to the exclusion of other equally important aspects."

Present-day students Marian Belton and Lynn Mills are in full agreement.

Both left school with no qualifications and both have brought up families in working class Liverpool areas.

And both had given up on education - until they stumbled on, or in Marian's case was dragged to, Second Chance.

Lynn says: "I'd hated the whole idea of education. I hated school, I hated teach-ers, I hated the system.

"Basically, I'd become a mum and just stayed at home. Second Chance made me see things in a different light. I do courses that matter to me, like local history, which teach me about my city and my people.

"Now I can see the value of education and I'm passing this on to my kids."

Marian, from Toxteth, adds: "When I started I was shy and had no confidence. I had been a mum and I had looked after my own mum until she died and then I felt I was left with nothing.

"My friend, Sylvia, dragged me here in the pouring rain and told me it would do me the world of good. Now I feel like I've got something to say.

"If Second Chance was to close I just don't know what would happen to people like me."